The book was conceived by its editor, Holly Gleason, a part-time resident and occasional contributor to the Palm Beach Daily News. Gleason has written extensively about music for major publications and composed the Kenny Chesney hit “Better as a Memory” with Scooter Carusoe under the name Lady Goodman. She’ll sign copies of her book from 1-4 p.m. Saturday at C. Orrico, 336 S. County Road.

You don’t need to be a woman or even like country music to enjoy the book, Gleason said.

“This isn’t about music,” she said. “This is about life and uses women as a framework. It’s about turning points and how music moves you through them.”

The book has been endorsed by country music celebrities such as Keith Urban and Reba McEntire, who’ve had their portraits taken with it.

The writers include poet Caroline Randall Williams; Rock & Roll Hall of Fame executive Shelby Morrison; Alice Randall, the only black woman to write a No. 1 country song; and Swift, who contributed an essay about Brenda Lee she wrote when she was 17.

Contributor Ronni Lundy won the 2017 James Beard Award for Cookbook of the Year for Victuals: An Appalachian Journey with Recipes, about the cuisine and culture of her homeland. She relates how the “plangent tone” of Dickens’ voice pierced her heart, while the lyrics spoke the truth about women’s lives.

“Even before you go to Hazel’s stories-lyrics, which are starkly brilliant, you need to be shivered loose and lifted by the exquisite beauty of that wild raw voice,” she said. “That song also captures for me one of the deepest elements of the Appalachian experience — the longing to return to a home that exists largely in the heart, the soul.”

Nancy Harrison, the producer in charge of Access Hollywood’s music coverage, recalls stumbling upon 9 to 5 on the radio as a Long Island teenager. She was hooked by Parton’s angelic voice and heartfelt delivery.

But it was Parton’s unabashed femininity while churning out hits such as “Jolene”, “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You” that became Harrison’s roadmap.

“I came of age in the 1980s and early 1990s at a time when women wore business suits in the workforce to blend in with the males,” Harrison said. “I was always a girly girl. I didn’t want to give up that part of me to succeed. Dolly Parton proved you didn’t have to.”

Cynthia Sanz, executive editor at People Magazine, discovered Mary Chapin Carpenter’s music when she was in her early 20s and had just moved to New York from San Antonio to work at the magazine.

“She was writing about women trying to do new things and figure out a life that wasn’t just graduating and getting married,” she said. “I felt there was something else out there. She was asking the same questions.”

More used to writing about other people than her inmost thoughts, Sanz struggled with the essay.

“It was a lot harder to write about me and put out my own insecurities and personal moments out there for people to read,” she said. “Yet that’s the thing I love most about the book. All these women talked from the heart about what the music meant to them and bared their dreams and hopes and insecurities.”

Gleason, who wrote about Tanya Tucker under own name and Lucinda Williams as Lady Goodman, said while “sharing” is ubiquitous these days, thoughtful communication is not. She hopes the book inspires readers to open up about ways artists have changed their lives.